page_title: Grey-headed woodpecker
section_title: Food and feeding
hierarchical_section_title: Grey-headed woodpecker / Behaviour and ecology / Food and feeding
caption_attribution_description: English: Description: detailed sideview of a Formica rufa Deutsch: Beschreibung: Detailierte Seitenansicht der Art Rote Waldameise Formica rufa
context_page_description: The grey-headed woodpecker, also known as the grey-faced woodpecker, is a Eurasian member of the woodpecker family, Picidae. Along with the more commonly found European green woodpecker and the Iberian green woodpecker, it is one of three closely related sister species found in Europe. Its distribution stretches across large parts of the central and Eastern Palaearctic, all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
  The grey-headed woodpecker is more demanding than the European green woodpecker in terms of its habitat. It prefers old mixed coniferous forest with a high proportion of dead trees, feeding primarily on ants, although not being as exclusively dependent on this group as the green woodpecker. The grey-headed woodpecker's nest is typically excavated into dead or severely damaged trees.
  In the majority of areas for which population numbers are available, the grey-headed woodpecker is in decline. IUCN's Least Concern rating is primarily based on the large distribution of the species.
context_section_description: The grey-headed woodpecker is a somewhat less specialised ant hunter than the European green woodpecker. In its foraging strategy it is intermediate between many Dendrocopos species on the one hand, and the often ant-specific members of the genus Picus. This reduced ant specialisation of the grey-headed woodpecker allows it to be sympatric with European green woodpeckers and even to breed at about 100 meters from them.
  Nonetheless, ants and their immatures make up the lion's share of the grey-headed woodpecker's diet, particularly in spring and summer. Wood ants of the genus Formica as well as members of Lasius and Myrmicinae such as Myrmica spp. predominate, and with termites may make up 90% of the diet. Besides those, caterpillars, crickets, bark and wood beetle larvae, flies, spiders and lice are part of the diet. In late autumn and early winter, grey-headed woodpeckers switch to including significant amounts of vegetable matter, such as berries and other fruits, in their diets on a regular basis.
caption: Formica rufa is one of the species eaten
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